Coronavirus panic buying has seen a spike in freezer sales across the city as fear-stoked shoppers look to stockpile frozen “essentials” following the Taoiseach’s COVID-19 lockdown announcement.
Several white goods retailers have told Dublin Live there are “no chest freezers to be found” in the capital - with one home appliance salesman revealing “it’s all people are asking for in the past few days”.
On Thursday we reported how panic buying had taken hold across the country on a day that saw shoppers in Dublin fighting over trolleys, tinned food and toilet rolls and some even stealing items such as teabags and milk from others’ baskets.
The shameful stockpiling spree led to supermarket staff being reduced to tears as people jostled for up to an hour at clogged checkout queues.
Some stores were even forced to pull down their shutters due to the sheer volume of people frantically looking to stock up on frozen food, toiletries and disinfectants as the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies.
A knock-on effect on the run on the shop is a surge in sales of chest freezers in particular, with desperate consumers left pleading with floor workers at home appliance stores to “give me whatever you’ve got so”.
A salesman at a northside DID Electrical told Dublin Live: “It’s all anyone’s been asking for in our store, and it’s the same across the city.
“There are none to be had anywhere at this stage - they’re all gone. It's obviously because of the coronavirus - all the people stockpiling food, bread, whatever, in a panic over the outbreak now need to preserve it.
“A colleague had to tell one woman that there were no chest freezers in any of our other branches and she just said ‘give me whatever you’ve got so’.”
Another salesman added that they expected to have more in "at some stage early next week".
The panic-shopping spree followed Leo Varadkar’s announcement of a raft of “unprecedented measures” to stem the spread of coronavirus including the immediate closing of schools, creches and colleges, and banning public gatherings of more than 100 people indoors and 500 outside.
By Friday, with schools across the country closed, many shoppers had turned their attention to kids’ distractions.
A shop worker at EuroGiant in Celbridge told Dublin Live on Saturday morning that the demand appeared to be shifting from canned food to crayons and colouring books.
Yesterday evening it was revealed that there are now 90 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Republic and a further 29 in the North.
Ireland is now in the delay phase in its response to the pandemic and a further HSE statement is expected this evening to update the public on the number of confirmed cases and any new measures being taken in the war against the potentially deadly COVID-19 virus.
